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The last time I saw Toches, he was trapped in 1945 pretending to be Adolf Hitler with slick hair, arrogant attitude, and identical evil ’stache, since the vessel determined the clothes and hair. There were times when my defenders would have a full beard or hair down to their waist. This trip, the mustache had been traded for a scraggly beard and there was a little more buff to his wiry frame. Since the vessel didn’t turn a traveler into Captain America, I assumed the rat had seen time at the gym.

“Toecheese—” I began.

“Stop calling me that. My name is Toches, and that’s Mr. Toches to you.”

Marco smiled and took a long pull from his mug.

“What are you really doing here?” I asked.

“I told you. I’m on a fun trip.”

“A fun trip?” Marco questioned, looking around the sparse room and the peasantry style clothing of the customers.

“Yep, Gian-Carlo ordered us to have a good time. Those were his exact words. I want to see a witch. It’s on my bucket list.”

“You know witches don’t exist, right?” I arched an eyebrow, and he huffed at me.

“Besides,” Marco said. “They don’t burn witches at the stake in Salem.”

He eyed Marco then turned his attention toward me. “It seems your Scottish lover boy has been replaced with tall, blond, and stupid.”

A low growl rumbled from Marco’s throat, and I shook my head to deter him from tossing Toches across the room.

“He’s right. They don’t burn the people accused of witchcraft here, they hang them.”

Toches wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Really…damn.”

“And don’t let these Puritans hear you cuss, or you’ll find a noose around your neck,” Marco warned.

“Why don’t the two of you toddle on back to your secret lair and save your advice for someone who gives a shit.” Toches took a drink of the ale and made a face.

I agreed. It gave craft beer a whole new meaning.

“Speaking of Caiyan,” I referred back to his mention of my Scottish ex-boyfriend. “Where’s Gian-Carlo sending him and how is he getting there?”

“That guy needs to go back and fight for the good guys. He doesn’t have the balls to work for the Mafusos,” Toches snickered.

“I’m surprised you feel that way. Since he’s a talented grifter, you’d figure he’d be valuable to Gian-Carlo.”

“Oh, Gian-Carlo’s all stoked about him joining up, even wants to make him a full-fledged member, but there’s not enough keys. I don’t have one, thanks to you by the way. I had the Sleigh key in my grasp, then you took it from me.”

Not exactly what happened, but he was brooding and spilling his candy, so I let him speak.

“Whose key are you wearing?” I asked.

“That’s a secret.” He laid his hand over the top collar of his shirt.

A few moments later, a man and two young girls came inside the tavern. They took a table toward the back. As I glanced around the room, people were whispering and staring in our direction. Not good. My inner voice made the let’s get going signal. I ignored her for the moment. I needed more information about Caiyan.

“What does Gian-Carlo want with McGregor?” Marco asked.

Toches was silent. He drank his ale, and a bowl of pottage was placed in front of him by a tavern worker. He took a bite and nodded kindly at the server.

My stomach growled when the aroma of the stew-like dish hit my nostrils, but I was determined to find out where Caiyan was traveling. Marco wasn’t so determined.

“If you tell us why Gian-Carlo wants McGregor, then we’ll leave you in peace to enjoy your vacation.”

“We will?” I questioned.

Toches took another bite and chewed the request along with his meal. “The Scot knows of a key Gian-Carlo’s been after for some time. Gian-Carlo’s offered him a deal. If he takes Mortas to find the key and satisfies the remaining details of the contract, Gian-Carlo will return his key.”

“Why do they want McGregor to get the key? Why don’t they go get it themselves?” Marco asked.

“He’s the only one who knows the location, and he’s not telling, only showing.” Toches took another spoonful of the stew.

“What happens after they get the key?” I asked.

“Gian-Carlo has a plan, not one I agree with. He’s going to induct your Scot into the Mafusos and give him his key back, if he does exactly what Gian-Carlo’s ordered.”

“What are the orders?” Marco asked.

Toches face dropped. “I’m not going to tell you the details. Now shoo. You promised.”

Huh. I wondered what these details involved.

A group of three men entered the tavern and were led upstairs by the woman who had waited on us earlier.

Toches pushed his empty mug away from him as the men brought a young woman down the flight of stairs. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her amber eyes went wide as the patrons accused her of being a witch, and the men led her toward the exit.

Someone yelled, “Take her to the gallows!

The crowd emptied out of the tavern into the cobblestone streets.

A church bell tolled in the distance, and Toches slipped off his stool. “Showtime. Catch you two troublemakers on the flip side.”

We walked outside. The frightened young woman was in the clutches of a stout man who reminded me of a whiskey barrel.

Another man held a bible open in his long, slim hands and his mouth danced the doorknocker beard he sported as he ranted on about witches and sins.

The townspeople gathered around the bible man, cheering and showing their support. I categorized him under evil-eyed authoritative figure, right next to David Koresh.

“Take her to Proctor’s,” the people chorused. “The hanging tree!”

The young woman was loaded into a haycart and a mess of townspeople followed behind her as the cart rolled away.

Toches gave a crooked smile. “Think I’ll get a front row seat.”

He was a sick dude.

“Should we follow him?” I asked Marco. “We did promise to leave, but…” I glanced toward the unruly crowd.

He shrugged. “I guess.”

Marco and I followed Toches and the group of rabble-rousers toward the edge of town. Bits of hay floated off the cart as it rattled down the cobblestone road.

The entourage stopped at the edge of a hill. The people clustered together in front of a sturdy tree. A rope hung from one of its thick branches and swung gently in the summer breeze.

Proctor’s Ledge. I remembered reading about the area believed to be the site of the hangings of the famous witch trials. In my time, the small knoll stood uphill from a CVS and wasn’t anything spectacular. It was hard to imagine the scene before me, and now that I was here, my stomach turned.

The crowd watched as the young woman was unloaded from the cart. Straws of hay clung to her hair and clothes. The men pulled the stumbling woman toward the makeshift ladder she would stand on to end her life. Toches was, as promised, front and center. Marco and I stood watching the mob.

“We should help her,” I said.

“No,” Marco said firmly. “You know the rules. We watch from a distance. Toches hasn’t done anything to arrest him for, yet.”

The crowd’s jeers heightened, and I fought off a roil of nausea.

“Marco, we have to do something. We can’t let that innocent woman hang.”

“If you screw up the past, Jake won’t let you travel again.”

I fidgeted and racked my brain for the names and dates of the people accused of witchcraft and hung in Salem. “I don’t recall this one. I thought the first hanging was on June 10th?”

“Jen, it happened. The history books don’t always have a correct accounting of the past. You have to get over the fact that things occurred in history that weren’t fair or humane.”

“I know but…”

“We’re here to watch our mark, arrest him if he steals or kills, period.”

The whiskey barrel hauled the young woman to the tree. The people threw rotten food at her and called her names. Sinner…Devil worshiper…witch.

The man with the bible stood on a fallen log, elevating him like the preacher at Sunday service. He shouted a passage to the crowd. The crescendo of his voice rose above the people, creating a frenzy of excitement throughout the crowd.

“I’ll risk it,” I said to him and pleaded with my baby blues. A girl’s gotta use what a girl’s got to use.

He rolled his eyes heavenward, huffed, and relented. His shoulders sagged and he mumbled. “OK, I’ll see what I can do, but you’d better be ready to leave as soon as I free the girl. These people are going to be upset they didn’t see a good show.”

“Thanks.” I leaned up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

We scanned the area, searching for the best possible place to cause a diversion so Marco could free the young woman.

She stepped up onto a short platform built directly under the tree. The crowd grew quiet, waiting for the last words from the woman found guilty of witchcraft.

“I am not a witch,” she shouted to the crowd.

The people cried out at her. “Speak thy Lord’s Prayer.” And “The devil has possessed her.”

I hoped Marco made his decision quickly. The crowd was growing intense.

“I’m going to take the right side and grab her before he pushes her off the platform. You stay close so we can get out of Dodge immediately after,” Marco said.

As we made our way closer to the stage, I bumped into a stooped, cloaked woman. She turned toward me, her wise blue eyes peering at me from under her hood.

“Pray thee, pardon,” I said to her.

She smiled and her eyes twinkled. A feeling of déjà vu struck me. I shrugged it off and the old woman made her way through the crowd. Everyone wanted a front row seat.

Marco and I moved closer. We had to hurry for Marco to reach her in time.

Whiskey Barrel served as the executioner. He reached for the rope.

Marco moved, ready to spring into action.

Before Marco could make his move, and before Whiskey Barrel could slide the noose around her neck, Toches tackled the man.

Toches, Whiskey Barrel, and the young woman fell off the platform and tumbled head over tail into a roll down the short hill, ending at the haycart.

Marco and I stood slack-jawed along with the angry onlookers.

A uniform gasp sounded from the crowd, followed by whispers of the devil. I added my gasp as Toches had regained his footing and held up a Bic lighter.

The crowd took a step back at the sight of the small fire flickering from his fist.

He proceeded to set the hay in the cart on fire.

The fire caught quickly and spread to the cart, creating a billow of smoke. Through the smoke, I saw the young woman retreat into the woods alongside the cloaked figure I bumped into earlier. Maybe the old woman was a relative of the girl. Good for her.

Toches vanished behind the veil of smoke, and I assumed he’d made a break for wherever he’d come from.

The fire raged, and I wondered if Proctor’s tree would become the famous witch hanging tree after all.

The townspeople were in a chaotic frenzy trying to douse the fire. Men were shouting, teenage girls were falling on the ground like the young woman had bewitched them upon her escape.

The bible man preached the good word from his log.

“What are the chances Toches’s conscious got the best of him, and he saved that girl without any hidden agenda?” I asked Marco.

“Doubtful, but it’s safe for us to go,” Marco said. “Toches will be heading for his vessel. We can piece together the intel at base.”

I turned to walk toward the opposite end of town. There was an old homestead site in the middle of the woods we used for landing. The log home had fallen into disrepair but offered us a thick grove of trees that allowed us to safely call our vessels.

As we walked toward the woods, a frantic shout came from behind us.

“Run you idiots!”

Toches flew past us, followed by a mob of angry Puritans.

“There, those people were speaking with the witch!” A young girl, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen, pointed her finger at us. I recognized her from the tavern.

“Get them!” a voice from the mob shouted.

I stood mouth gaping, not believing what I was seeing.

Marco grabbed my hand and pulled me along, one hand on his key and the other dragging me beside him. He mumbled as he ran.

The landscape blurred around me, and a warped sensation passed through my body like I was running inside a bubble. His gift slowed time and the mob seemed to drift off into the background as I stumbled along behind him.

When the time warp returned to normal, Toches hightailed it into the woods and I lost sight of him. Marco released my hand.

The few minutes he was able to stall time allowed us to cut through the woods and double back toward our clearing. We ran hard, cutting through the thick underbrush.

Marco was steps in front of me. We were almost to the clearing when I tripped over something large and fell face down in the muck of the forest floor. I lifted my head and looked behind me to see Toches lying face up in a mangle of vines.

“What the hell?” Marco asked as he returned to help me. He leaned over Toches, panting hard, his hands on his knees.

I moved over the brigand’s lifeless body and felt for a pulse in his neck.

“He’s got a pulse.” I saw the slow rhythm of his chest. “And he’s breathing.”

A giant welt bloomed on the pale skin of his forehead.

Marco urged me on, the faint sound of people shouting in the distance alerted me. Hurry.

“Let’s go,” Marco commanded.

“We’ll have to take him with us.”

“Why?”

“We can’t leave him here. They’ll hang him.”

Marco huffed.

I untied the collar of Toches’s shirt.

“What are you doing? We need to get out of here!”

“I have to see if he’s wearing Caiyan’s key.”

“Jen,” Marco urged.

“I have to take it from him before he comes to,” I said. I knew I’d be breaking a WTF rule, but Caiyan’s key was at stake. I opened his shirt and exposed the shiny key gleaming around his thin neck.

“It’s Mahlia’s key,” I said, dumbfounded. “I can’t believe she’d give her key to this scumbag.”

Just as I said the words, Marco grunted and flew forward, landing on his hands and knees a few inches from me.

“What the fu…?” he cried out, rolling around on his back in pain.

I didn’t hear a gunshot, but scooted over to him, keeping my body low to the ground. I ran my hands over his back, searching. “Hold still. Where are you hit?”

Marco sat up. I didn’t see any blood seeping through his shirt.

“Am I shot?” he asked, trying to look at his back.

“Fare thee well, witches!” A voice sounded from up in the trees. I followed the voice to two young boys armed with slingshots.

“Marco, you were hit by a stone,” I said as another flew inches from my face.

He turned and saw the boys. Dodging flying stones, he stood and marched toward the tree.

The boys scampered down the trunk to flee. He grabbed them by the collars of their shirts as they reached the bottom and jerked them away from the tree.

“What should we do with them?” I asked, joining Marco and adding a witch cackle for good measure.

“I’m going to feed them to my dragon.” Marco released them and put his hand to his key. In seconds his vessel, a shiny red racecar, materialized in the clearing.

“’Tis a dragon,” the taller of the two boys said. They stared as if in a hypnotic trance, no longer struggling or calling for their parents.

I summoned my vessel, and the boys stood slack-jawed.

“The witch lives in a privy.” They frowned with disappointment.

“Not everyone gets a dragon,” I said to them.

“Pray thee, do not turn us to toads,” the shorter one said.

“Don’t tell anyone you saw us, or I’ll find you, and my dragon will burn down your houses…” Marco paused, “and kill your mothers!”

The boys began to cry, nodding their heads as snot and tears wet their dirty faces.

“Away with you boys!” Marco shouted. They turned tail and ran.

“Did you have to threaten to kill their mothers?” I asked Marco as he helped me tie up Toches and load him into my vessel.

“It’s a good threat. No boy wants to lose his mother at ten. That comes much later…like fifteen.”

I cocked a brow at him.

“Oh, we want them back again around twenty-one, so it’s all good.” He stepped back from my outhouse. “Take him to Gitmo, and I’ll meet you there.”

I climbed in next to Toches. “We need to cover his face if I’m going to take him back to headquarters.”

Marco’s gaze ran the length of my dress.

“What do you suggest? I arrive at headquarters naked?”

“I don’t know, be creative.” He slammed the door.

I tried to figure out what to use to blindfold my unconscious brigand. Normally, women of this time didn’t wear panties, but I had persuaded my vessel to provide me with the type of breeches worn by men. What can I say, traipsing around in the seventeenth century without any underwear made me nervous.

I slipped off the pair of linen breeches and wrapped them over his head. If he woke up, at least he’d have trouble seeing through the fabric until Jake could provide a hood.